A day after taking charge, BJP president Rajnath Singh has already set his priorities. Making home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's remark that RSS and BJP camps train terrorists a matter of "national prestige" is right at the top of his priority list.
He is also looking at the national
council of the party being planned for mid-February as a launch pad for crucial assembly polls in states where the BJP is in power. The national council, sources say, is expected in Bhopal, and is likely to kick off the party's campaign for the crucial Madhya Pradesh polls to be held later this year. Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi and Karnataka will also go to polls in 2013.

He is also voicing an inclusive tone, saying that the party chief's success depends on the party's rank and file, adding that Nitin Gadkari will continue to be important in the party.

"India's prestige has suffered and the BJP won't tolerate the nation's prestige suffering. Hafiz Sayeed supported the home minister's statement and said India is a terrorist state," Rajnath Singh told HT. "When we are victims of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, the Indian home minister gives Pakistan an opportunity to show India as the centre of terrorism and the Prime Minister and Congress president are quiet."

Singh is now projecting that the home minister has let down the nation rather than just targeting him for attacking the RSS.

He added that the reverberations of Shinde's accusation will be felt in Parliament.

Leading a BJP protest with Singh earlier in the day, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj attacked Shinde, "What are you trying to tell the world? ...That the main opposition party is running a terror camp? Do you want to say terrorists are sitting in Parliament? Is the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha heading a terror organization?"